Groom Lake with Papoose Lake noticeable at the lower right

Groom Lake is a salt flat in Nevada used for runways of the Nellis Bombing Range Test Site airport (KXTA) on the north of the Area 51 USAF military installation. The lake at 4,409 ft (1,344 m)^[1] elevation is ~3.7 miles (6.0 km) from north to south and 3 miles (4.8 km) from east to west at its widest point.^[2] Located within the namesake Groom Lake Valley portion of the Tonopah Basin, the lake is northeast of Papoose Lake's S-4 (Sector Four) location and ~25 mi (40 km) south of Rachel, Nevada.^[2]

History[link]

Lead and silver were discovered in the southern part of the Groom Range in 1864,^[3] and the English Groome Lead Mines Limited company financed the Conception Mines in the 1870s, giving the district its name (nearby mines included Maria, Willow and White Lake). Also, the historical town of Rosswell was located here until evacuation of the US Military.^[4] The interests in Groom were acquired by J. B. Osborne and partners and patented in 1876, and his son acquired the interests in the 1890s.^[4] Claims were incorporated as two 1916 companies with mining continuing until 1918 and resuming after World War II until the early 1950s.^[4]

References[link]

Coordinates: 37°16′N 115°48′W / 37.267°N 115.8°W / 37.267; -115.8

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Robert Scott Lazar or Bob Lazar (born January 26, 1959, in Coral Gables, Florida, United States, to Albert Lazar and Phyllis Berliner), has claimed to have worked from 1988 until 1989 as a physicist at an area called S-4 (Sector Four), allegedly located near Groom Lake, Nevada, at the location also known as Area 51. According to Lazar, S-4 served as a hidden military location for the study and possible reverse engineering of extraterrestrial flying saucers. Lazar says he saw nine different discs there and provides details on their mode of propulsion. However, his credibility has come under fire after "schools he was supposed to have attended had no record of him, while others in the scientific community had no memory of ever meeting him."^[2]

Education[link]

Lazar claims to hold degrees from the California Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1993, the Los Angeles Times looked into his background and found there was no evidence to support those claims.^[1] Stanton Friedman was only able to verify that Lazar took electronics courses in the late 1970s at Pierce Junior College.^[3] The Times did discover that in 1990 Lazar had pled guilty to felony pandering, when he installed a computer system for a local brothel,^[4] declared bankruptcy and listed his occupation as self-employed photo processor on documents.^[1] A 1991 Times article reported, Lazar was "on probation in Clark County, Nevada, on a pandering charge. His educational and professional background cannot be verified -- a fact he attributes to government deletion of records."^[5] However military officials claim Lazar never worked in any of their facilities.

Scientific research[link]

Lazar first jumped on the media map in 1982 in the Los Alamos Monitor. The article titled "LA MAN JOINS THE JET SET - AT 200 MILES AN HOUR" was about a jet car that Lazar had created and worked on for years with help from a NASA researcher. The car was built from a jet engine modified and placed on an existing car model. It is also important to note that the article noted Lazar as "a physicist at the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility", as it is one media article that puts Robert on the map as a physicist.^[6]

In November 1989, Lazar appeared in a special interview with investigative reporter George Knapp on Las Vegas TV station KLAS to discuss his purported employment at S-4. In his interview with Knapp, Lazar said he first thought the saucers were secret terrestrial aircraft whose test flights must have been responsible for many UFO reports. Gradually, on closer examination and from having been shown multiple briefing documents, Lazar came to the conclusion that the discs were of extraterrestrial origin. In his filmed testimony Lazar explains how this impression first hit him after he boarded one craft being studied and examined its interior.^[7]

For the propulsion of the studied vehicles, Bob Lazar claims that the atomic Element 115 served as a nuclear fuel. Element 115 (temporarily named "ununpentium" (symbol Uup)) reportedly provided an energy source which would produce anti-gravity effects under proton bombardment along with antimatter for energy production. As the intense strong nuclear force field of Element 115's nucleus would be properly amplified, the resulting large-scale gravitational effect would be a distortion of the surrounding space-time continuum that would, in effect, greatly shorten the distance and travel time to a charted destination.^[8]

Lazar also claims that he was given introductory briefings describing the historical involvement by extraterrestrial beings with this planet for the past 100,000 years. The beings originate from the Zeta Reticuli 1 & 2 star system and are therefore referred to as Zeta Reticulans, popularly called 'Greys'.^[9]

Fact or Fiction[link]

His stories have garnered some rather interesting fanfare and media attention. Some hold out for Bob's story, but others remain skeptical, including Stanton Friedman, who looked into Lazar's claims and did his own investigating on the matter.^[10]

Desert Blast[link]

Lazar and long time friend Gene Huff run Desert Blast, an annual festival for "explodaholics" in the Nevada desert. Starting in 1987 (but only formally named in 1991, inspired by Desert Storm) the festival features home-made explosives, rockets, jet-powered vehicles, and other pyrotechnics, with the intention of emphasizing the fun aspect of physics.^[11][12]

United Nuclear[link]

In the year 2000 Lazar started United Nuclear, an amateur scientific supply company formerly operated in Sandia Park, New Mexico and recently moved to Laingsburg, MI. United Nuclear sells a variety of materials including radioactive ores, powerful magnets, scientific curiosities like aerogel, and a variety of lab chemicals. United Nuclear claims "over 300,000 satisfied customers," including law-enforcement agencies, schools and amateur scientists.^[13]

In 2006 Lazar and wife Joy White were charged with violating the Federal Hazardous Substances Act for shipping restricted chemicals across state lines following a federal investigation started in 2003.^[14] The charges stemmed from a 2003 raid on Lazar's business where chemical sales records were examined.^[14] The maximum penalty is 270 days in prison and a $15,000 fine.^[14] Lazar claimed that he mistakenly concluded that he could legally sell the chemicals after finding incorrect information on the internet.^[15]

In 2007 Lazar/United Nuclear were fined $7,500 for violating a law against selling chemicals and components used to make illegal fireworks.^[16] Lazar "pled guilty to three criminal counts of introducing into interstate commerce and aiding and abetting the introduction into interstate commerce of banned hazardous substances."^[17] Lazar also "entered into a consent decree that permanently limits the amount of future sales of fireworks-related chemicals", and United Nuclear Scientific Equipment and Supplies was placed on probation for three years.^[17]

Lazar again gained attention in 2006 from news reports that he sold small amounts of Polonium, a radioactive element which was in the news because of its role in fatally poisoning former Soviet intelligence agent and whistleblower Alexander Litvinenko.^[18]

Documentary & Media Appearances[link]

• Weird Travels (TV Series) - 2003
• Encounters With The Unexplained (TV Series) - 2000
• Close Encounters: Proof of Alien Contact (video) - 2000
• Area 51: The Alien Interview (Video) - 1997
• Dreamland: Area 51 (TV Documentary) - 1996
• Future Fantastic (TV Series) - 1996
• Yaoi Jun'ichi UFO shuzai tokuhô dai 3 dan (TV Documentary) - 1990

References[link]

External links[link]

• Project Web Official website^{[dead link]} / Mirror website
• United Nuclear (a company founded by Bob Lazar)
• The Bob Lazar Corner

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